She's 18 Why Does She Have to be the Adult?
by farewellblindgirl
Summary: Alexis is out of patience. She and Detective Beckett have a conversation. Takes place near the end of S4. Now a sort of ersatz series about conversations Alexis and Kate have in the future...
1. Chapter 1

She's 18. She Really Shouldn't Have to be the Adult.

**Disclaimer**: I lost Castle to AM in a wild game of Crazy 8s.

**Summary: **Alexis and Kate have a conversation. Near the end of S4.

* * *

Alexis leans back from the book she is reading, stretches her back and her mind and tries to let all the tension she is holding just evaporate. She fails.

The book is fascinating, but it's failing to hold her attention today. The reading is an assignment from Dr. Parish as part of her internship. It's deep into the long dreadful middle of June. Graduation is over and Orientation Week at Columbia is still weeks away. She goes to the M.E's office every day, even though it's been a dead month. Or maybe undead would be more appropriate. They haven't had a case that's required any real level of attention in weeks. Lanie has explained that it's always like this - "The warm weather's burned all the winter crazy off, but it ain't hot enough for the summer crazy to start yet" - so Alexis is starved for work, but with nothing else to do, she comes in every day anyway.

Her friends are all off on trips. She wanted to stick around, hang out with her Dad, but... Richard Castle has been acting like the rewarmed leftover of his normal self for the last few weeks. A few weeks ago, he'd headed off to Vegas in an dangerously ebullient explosion of energy, but that had run itself out pretty quickly. Since then, he'd been limping around the house as an uncharacteristically sad sack that makes her want to cry, every time she sees him.

She wishes she really hated Kate Beckett, so that she could kill her without remorse.

Because, rubbing her eyes, she knows it's all Kate's fault. He was like this last summer too, stuck in limbo waiting for the Detective's call that never came. At least in her absence, he was able to lie to himself. This time around, getting up, dragging himself to the precinct in a way that's fooling no one but the man himself, it's worse. He's not talking about it, he's not talking about anything, really, but she's overheard enough conversations between him and Grams, read between enough lines, picked enough details from an inebriated Grandmother to rebuild the whole story.

Boy Loves Girl. Boy Tells Girl. Girl Gives Boy Hope. Girl Proves to be Messing with Boy All Along. Boy Is Shattered Into a Hundred Million Tiny Writerbits. Daughter Must Reassemble Writerbits with Tweezers and Ice Cream. Daughter Goes Crazy and Makes up Children's Books in Her Head That Use the Term Writerbits.

Alexis shakes her head, tries to clear her thoughts of her Dad, tries to go back to the forensics text in front of her, but she can't, because Detective Beckett is standing next to her.

"Hi, Alexis."

"Um, hi, Detective Beckett. Dr. Parish is out, but she should be back in an hour or so." She wants this conversation over quickly.

"Oh, no, that's okay," Detective Beckett replies. "It's just dead upstairs, I thought I'd see what everyone was up to."

"Oh," Alexis says, and can hear the sharpness in her own voice. She knows she's being rude. It's hard, since she still likes Kate. She has too much of the Castle optimism in her, part of her wants to still believe there is just some sort of odd misunderstanding in all of this. But, she is angry, because while she likes Kate, she loves her Dad, and has little patience for someone who would seek to hurt him. She's angry at herself too, because she never would have judged Kate to be one of the ones that would hurt him. Please just leave, she thinks to herself, hoping that some of the sentiment shows on her face.

Detective Beckett must recognize the look, because she steps back. "Oh, okay, well, I'll let you... you're obviously studying. I'll text Dr. Parish later." She turns then, heads back to the stairwell.

"What is my dad to you anyway?" Alexis asks when Kate is almost out of the room. The question throws both women for a loop. Alexis closes her eyes, clamps her jaw shut. She had no intention of speaking, but it's out there now.

"What?"

"I mean... is he just the guy you work with? Is he your friend? Is he the guy that makes you famous? You come over... you're nice to me and Grams and I don't get it."

Kate stands stunned. Alexis's voice is breaking with something she can't contain - anger? resignation? betrayal? Even she can't put a name to her own feelings.

"He'd take a bullet it for you, you know. He'd die for you," she continues. She can't seem to make herself stop.

"I'd die for him too," Kate says. The words are out of her mouth so quickly, Alexis briefly wonders if she even thought before speaking, like it's too true to even need thought. But, Detective Beckett always thinks before speaking.

Alexis laughs, but it's not a happy or funny laugh, "Yeah, but you're a cop. It's your job."

"I wouldn't ... I'd do it because it's him, not because it's my job."

Alexis looks up, her eyes wide. Kate has surprised her. Kate sighs.

Does she really mean that, Alexis wonders to herself. She starts again, quieter this time. "I don't know. I want to believe that. I mean, I thought you were different, but now I don't know."

"Different?"

"Dad..." How does she explain this? "Everyone thinks that because Dad's all happy-go-lucky that he's sort of impervious. But he's ... I mean, he's so good at protecting and taking care of others that no one seems to notice that Dad's not really good at protecting himself."

Kate chuckles. "I know."

Alexis scowls. It isn't funny. "He's forty. He's not going to learn how to protect himself now. He needs people to do it for him."

"I try," Kate says. But she's obviously not getting it.

"I don't mean physically. Meredith... my mother ... she's not really able to see past herself, so I don't think it's ever occurred to her that other people need things ... anyway. Gina... I think Gina thought protecting Dad meant protecting him as a writer, not as a person. And that girl from college, before my mom, I guess she just protected her family. I thought, maybe you'd do better, but ... I guess I'm wrong."

"Oh," Kate seems to say, and it takes Alexis a moment to realize that Kate didn't actually speak. Her face made the motions, but nothing had come out. Alexis just watches her.

"Alexis, I ... it's complicated. I am trying to protect him," she says and stops. She takes a deep breath, seems to come to a decision. "I am trying to protect his heart."

"It doesn't look like it from here," Alexis says, and she doesn't even try to keep the sarcasm from her voice.

"There are things that you don't understand."

"Don't patronize me. I know that telling someone you love them is a brave thing. I know that bravery should be rewarded. How would you like it if someone took your bravest moment and pretended it never happened?"

Kate sobs unexpectedly and abruptly. "He knows?"

"That you know what he said? Yes."

"How?"

"Does it matter? Dad pays attention to everything, even when you don't realize he's doing it. Pays a lot more when it's about someone he cares about. Loves."

Alexis runs out of steam, because really, what good is this doing? Sure, it's easy to share someone else's secrets and blame someone for their mistakes when you don't know or care why they've made them, but her Dad and Detective Beckett are both good people, and it really shouldn't be this hard, and maybe her concern is really all fueled by disappointment, because she feels like she's losing out on something she wasn't even cognizant of wanting herself.

"I'm sorry. It's ... it's not really my business I guess," she gets out, quieter now.

Kate chokes out some strangled sound, the pitiful lovechild of a laugh and a cry. "Alexis, he's your Dad. I can't imagine anyone's who's business it is more."

"Please ... Detective Beckett ... can you please just tell him how you feel, let him move on?"

Kate does start crying then, and Alexis wonders if she isn't dreadfully wrong and dammit, she didn't want Beckett to cry. Alexis can feel a sting in her eyes. She's crying too.

"I can't," Kate says, through the tears.

"Can't tell him how you feel? He already knows. He just needs to hear the words."

"Can't let him move on. I can't be without him."

She wants Kate's words to mean one thing, forces herself to know they means something else. She's seeing now why her Dad is as lost as he is, how easy it is to hang big hopes on little things.

"If he's your friend, if you care about him, then can't you ... he knows you don't love him." Kate flinches as Alexis says that. "He doesn't blame you for that. But he needs to hear the words, needs to stop letting himself believe ... you've got to protect him from his own hope."

"Where is he?"

Oh. That can't be good.

"He's," Alexis says, stalls. "Um, he'll be home tonight. You could come over..."

"No, where is he now? Please, where is he?"

"He's," she says, but there is an intensity now radiating off of Detective Beckett, one that seems to brook no argument. Alexis gives up. "There's a signing at that Barnes and Noble on the Upper West Side. I think he's there for a few more hours..."

"Thanks. Thanks, Alexis," Kate says, standing up. The words are muddled. Alexis can see Kate has already mentally left. "I promise...I'm different. I'll fix this."

Alexis sits, watches the Detective leave in a frantic rush. Should she call her Dad, or just get the hell out of the way? Did she just do a very good thing, or a very bad one?

She's only eighteen. Why does she have to be the adult?


	2. Chapter 2: The Heartbreak Six Pack

**Chapter 2: The Heartbreak Six Pack**

Alexis gets home from the precinct a few hours after her run-in with Kate. She's exhausted, already, from the anticipation of what she will find at the loft. She goes straight to the kitchen, places her shopping bag in the freezer. She's stocked up for the inevitable apocalypse. Phish Food, Chocolate Brownie, Mint Chocolate Chip - she's got six different pints of ice cream with her. Normally, scotch is the flavor that most often seems to go with Richard Castle's heartbreaks, but she's hoping she can steer him in a new direction this time. Alcohol will lead to things that can't be undone. He has to keep writing Nikki Heat. He's got to stick around and be her dad for a few more months. He can't do anything stupid.

The place is quiet. She hopes he's home. If he's ... not ... well then it's going to be much harder to manage the fallout.

Please, Dad. Please be home.

The study and his bedroom are both quiet though, and she even decides to go upstairs and check the rooms there. Nothing. She gives up looking for him, starts looking for evidence that he's been home today, or even better, evidence of where he may be. But there is nothing.

She's standing in the threshold of her bedroom, trying to decide how to approach finding him, when she hears the front door pound open and shut. Her Dad is home, making lots of noise as he moves around. He's mumbling, she thinks, or maybe he's talking to someone. Did he bring a girl home already?

"Where are you, oh meddling daughter of mine?" He yells. She can hear the attempted sternness in his voice, the tone that he takes when he's trying to be parental, as opposed to when he's just naturally parental. She turns and goes downstairs. He's standing in the middle of the loft, in the dead space between the living room and kitchen. At least he's alone.

"Here, Dad."

"There you are," he says angrily. But it's a fake sort of anger, and she can tell as he moves and as he looks at her that there's actually something else, underneath the erzatz anger, bubbling up out of him. Oh hell, she thinks to herself. He's already drunk.

"I hear that you took it upon yourself to talk to Detective Beckett? To corner her and try to sort out our love life?"

"I didn't corner her. Sit down, Dad. I'll make us dinner," she says, ducks into the kitchen. "And I'm sorry. I didn't really mean to. I know it's not my business, I just ... don't hate me, please?"

"You didn't mean to? Then I'm really scared to see what you can do when you do mean to," he says, coming around the island so that he's standing in front of her, the full measure of his height dwarfing her. She's never once been scared of her Dad, except when she thinks she's disappointed him. She's scared now.

"As for sorry, young lady, don't ever ever apologize..."

And then she's in his arms, a big bear hug, the best kind of hug, one of her Dad's hugs where he just envelops her and she feels his love like it's a big fuffly real true physical thing, a down comforter on a February morning thing.

"Dad?" she tries to ask, her voice muffled in his chest.

"Well, you were right, it's already posted," she hears someone say, off in the distance. Her father lets her go, and she drops an inch or two to stand on her own feet again. They both turn to see Kate Beckett walking into the kitchen holding Castle's iPad. Her Dad kisses her on her forehead. She can feel the smile on his lips, even as she looks at Beckett.

Kate hands her Dad the iPad. He looks at it and bursts out laughing.

"I wonder if I can get prints made of this tonight," he says as Kate turns to her and says, "Hi, Alexis."

Alexis is stunned by, well, by all of it: the smile on Kate's face, the hand the Detective has put on her shoulder, her very presence here in the loft. She wants to speak, but what is there to say? She's never really viscerally understood the word before, but now she finds herself standing there, dumbstruck.

"Here, Pumpkin," her Dad says, "you should see the havoc your little talk has caused. Scarred an entire bookstore of devoted fans, I should say."

She looks at the proffered iPad, recognizes the New York Post website on the browser. The featured picture takes her a second to understand.

It's her father at the signing, sitting at the table, surrounded by fans. But he's not signing anything in the picture because a woman, well, the woman is obviously Kate, isn't it? Kate has crawled into his lap, grabbed his face and is kissing him like she wants to crawl up and live inside him.

Alexis looks back and forth between the two of them. Her Dad is giddy - the bubbly-ness she thought was alcohol is actually something better. Stronger. Kate is more subdued, looks almost sheepish, but there's a bubbly-ness in her too.

"I'm sorry, Alexis," Kate says, "I went over there with a whole list of things I wanted to say, but when I saw him..."

"I think you got your point across well enough," her dad says.

"I'm still sorry. I wasn't thinking. A girl shouldn't have to.."

"Its fine," Alexis says, finally finding her voice, "it's ... it's really really good, actually."

Kate gives her a smile that looks very much like a thank you, and her father gives her a one armed hug and a kiss on her crown. Alexis, on an impulse, grabs Kate's arm, pulls her into her own one armed hug. It's a schmaltzy little moment that Alexis enjoys far more than ice cream.

"You realize any chance we had of being discreet has gone right out the window," Her Dad says to Kate as they all disengage.

"You're not a particularly subtle man, Castle," Kate says, leaning in and giving him a quick peck on the cheek. "I'm pretty sure we never had any chance of being discreet anyway."

"Well, for that, I'm not going to make dinner for my favorite girls... okay, I'm still going to make dinner for my girls, but I'm not going to be really polite when I serve you." It's only mildly funny, but Alexis laughs anyway. Her Dad, the big loving goofball that fills up the world and makes things better, that version of her Dad is back.

Alexis is surprised when Kate tugs her gently out of the room, takes her aside. She hears her father futzing in the kitchen, "oh, you got the heartbreak six pack... I love Phish Food..."

"Alexis, I am really sorry..."

"You don't have to apologize Detect..." Alexis says, trying to interrupt.

"Kate. Please. Call me Kate. And I do," she says, holding up her hand when Alexis goes to protest further, "No. I do. I've spent the last eleven months not saying things that need to be said, and I've got to stop that. And not just with him. He and I have spoken, but I feel like... I need to make you a promise too. I'm ...I'll protect him, Alexis. You were wrong, you both were, but it's my fault. I love him, and I haven't done a good enough job acting on that. But, I'll make sure that I take care of him, even if it's hard, even if it hurts, even if it scares me. You don't have to believe me, but I'm telling you so you'll hold me to it, okay?"

Alexis has no idea what to say, but before she can speak there is a lightness that comes over her, the weird energy of connection, of discovery, of finding there is someone else out there in the world that gets it. She's too overwhelmed to do anything but nod, smile, step into Kate and not so much hug as let herself be hugged. Because somehow Kate has gotten it, has reached out for her as well. Kate's hug is different from her father's, tentative where Dad is all consuming, but there are similarities. She feels the same sense of preciousness and protection. Feels, oddly, like she's home.

"Kate? Pumpkin?"

Alexis lets go of Kate, turns back to the kitchen. "Yeah, Dad?"

"I was going to make gnocchi until I realized I don't know what gnocchi is. I mean, it's little tasty pillows of something, I just don't know..."

"You're rambling, Castle," Kate says, but there is a laugh in it.

"...what the pillows are made of. Regular old pasta okay?"

"It's good, Dad."

He bounds back to pantry, and Alexis sits at the counter while Kate goes and helps with the food. Alexis watches them as they flutter back and forth, her Dad's bunny-rabbity energy bouncing off Kate's contained grace. They make a good pair, nicely in rhythm if not perfectly in sync. About halfway through preparations, her Dad seems to realize that Kate isn't asking him where things are, that she remembers from when she'd stayed there two years ago. He seems to find this an event worth celebrating, grabs Kate and kisses her. Kate blushes but kisses him back. Amidst all the preparations, Kate starts a conversation, and it's not really until half-way through dinner that Alexis realizes that Kate's had her talking about Columbia and college and her future for nearly an hour.

It's weird having one of her Dad's girlfriends care about her.

But she'll get used to it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I only own them in a parallel universe I had JJ Abrams create for me. In this universe, I just own an old pair of sneakers, half a quart of Phish Food, and the worlds largest collection of Sherlock Holmes artwork made from eggshells.**

* * *

It's late, after midnight, when Alexis lets herself into the loft. She expects that her Dad is asleep; well, hopes he's asleep anyway. But as she gets through the door, she sees that the lights are on in the kitchen and the study, realizes he's still up. She puts down her backpack by the door, heads into the kitchen.

"Hey Dad ... oh. Kate, hi. Is Dad asleep?"

Kate Beckett is alone in the kitchen, making something on the stove that Alexis can't quite see. Kate turns, smiles. "Alexis? What are you doing here?"

"Um...Is Dad here?"

"Oh, he's at Nobu with some producer. I guess they want to try and make a Storm movie now too."

Alexis relaxes, sits on one of the barstools. "I got sexiled."

"Oh."

"Yeah. Moira and Dave've been pretty good about it until now, but... I wasn't going to pull an allnighter in the library if I didn't have to. But I'm glad I don't have to tell Dad."

"Lemme guess. You tell your Dad that your roommate is having sex, then he realizes that means you might..."

"Yeah. But, I'm not..." Alexis says.

"No, I can see that being a long conversation either way. You know, we can just tell him you needed a night at home."

Alexis laughs. "That works."

Kate flips back around to the stove, lifts a skillet off the burner. "Want a grilled cheese sandwich?"

Alexis goes to say no, but her stomach growls, giving her away.

"Yeah, I heard that," Kate says, "Take this one." She flips the sandwich onto a plate, cuts it in half, slides the plate to Alexis. Alexis takes a bite while Kate starts buttering a new slice of bread. "How's the semester been so far?"

"Good. I'm going to Homecoming this weekend. This is really good," Alexis says between bites.

"Your Dad went off on a cheese thing. Who really needs forty types of cheese? Homecoming? The game?"

"The dance. Though I might go to the game too. Some friends are going. Actually... I have a dress, but I wanted to pick up some shoes I left behind."

Alexis puts down her sandwich, goes up to her old room, finds the black strappy sandals with little flowers on them. Realizing Kate is downstairs and able to help, she grabs a few other pairs of shoes as well, takes them back to the kitchen. She lines them up, five pairs, along the kitchen island.

"So," she says, "which do you think are best?"

"Well," Kate says, "I will say avoid those." Kate points at the near stilettos at the end of the row. "You'll hate your feet after an hour. Hate everything in life after two. Otherwise... what does the dress look like?"

"Here, I have a picture." She pulls out her phone, pulls up the picture Moira took of her when she tried her dress on. It's a simple dress, classically cut, ending at the knee, in a light creamy orange that works surprisingly well with Alexis' red hair and porcelain complexion. Wide, black lace detailing runs around the waist.

"Oh, this is wonderful," Kate says, looking at the phone, "I'd go with the ones with the white flowers."

Alexis just smiles.

"So, the dance. Have a date?"

"Sort of. I'm going with a guy. Well, a couple of us are going, but I'm ... Dennis. I'm going with Dennis, but just as friends."

Kate looks at her, tilts her head to the side. Alexis can feel it before it happens, that odd bit of insight that her Dad seems to have, she's learning Kate has it too.

"But you like him," Kate says after a moment. It's not a question.

"I... I do, but... I don't know... he's the first guy since Ashley that I've really... I like him, but... I don't really know what I'm thinking," she says.

Kate gives her a sympathetic smile. She flips the other sandwich onto a plate, turns off the stove, comes and sits next to Alexis on a barstool.

"You're afraid," Kate says after taking a bite of her sandwich.

"I dunno. Maybe. I don't think so... I mean, I've always tried hard not to let fear stop me from doing something."

"It doesn't work that way, Alexis. Every bad date, broken relationship, hell, even when you lose a friend, it causes you to build up scars and self-defense mechanisms. Sometimes you don't even know they are there."

"How do you get around them then?"

"I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask," Kate says, chuckling lightly. "It took me three years to figure out the right guy was the one six inches in front of my face, and then a year, and a push from a smart girl, to get over my hangups and do something about it."

Alexis smiles, blushes.

"Alexis, honey. I'm not saying Dennis is the love of your life. I'm not even saying to give him a chance. I'm just saying ... even though it ended badly with Ashley, didn't you have a lot of good time together?"

Alexis thinks for a bit. It's hard to separate the good from the betrayal she felt at the end, but there are good things there to be remembered, when she tries.

"Yeah, we did."

"That's why it's worth it. Because even the relationships that end, even the ones that end badly, can still bring something to your life that's good. That's why you'll try again, maybe with Dennis, maybe with someone else, until you try for the last time, because you've found the one for the rest of your life."

"You sound like my Dad."

"He has a way of rubbing off on you, sometimes."

Alexis steps off her barstool, reaches over, hugs Kate. Kate hugs her back, rubs small circles on Alexis' shoulder-blade.

"So," Alexis says, after releasing their hug, "are you living here now?"

"What?"

"Well, it's after midnight. Dad's not here, but you are."

"Oh, no no. I mean, I still have my own place. My apartment."

"Sorry," Alexis says, "I mean, it's none of my business..."

"Yes, because Castle's stay out of each other's business," Kate says, but the laughing way she says it sounds like an invitation, not a reprimand.

"In that case, what I mean is, why aren't you living here?"

"We've only been together for a few months, Alexis."

"So? You were here every night I can remember before I moved into the dorm. You were in the Hamptons for the fourth and Labor Day with us. Grams calls you here daughter."

"She does?"

"Well, not when you can hear. She thinks it will embarrass you."

"So you want me to move in then? Is that what you're saying?"

"You know," Alexis says, "I told Meredith ... my Mom... that I was going to a formal. She offered to fly out, take me shopping."

"Um... okay," Kate says with a confused look. The change of subject is off-putting. "That sounds fun."

"Yeah, I thought it might be nice, until she said she could fly to San Francisco in just an hour."

"San Francisco?"

"She forgot I chose Columbia. Thought I'd gone to Stanford."

"Oh, honey, I'm sorry."

"No," Alexis says, "it's not... Dad has always been so great, and Grams too, that I've never felt like I was missing anything. But these last few months with you here. I didn't ever know I needed you, but now when I do, you're there. I don't want that to go away. I just... I love you, Kate. I want you to be here always."

Kate reaches in, hugs Alexis fiercely. "I love you too, Alexis," she says into Alexis' hair.

"The only reason," Kate says after a minute, "I don't live here is that he hasn't asked me yet."

"Oh," Alexis says. "Good."

"Maybe I should fix that," Castle says. Neither of them had heard him come in.

Alexis recovers first. "You're home! How did your meeting go?"

"It was fine, pumpkin, though it sounds like you two had a more productive night than I did."

"Rick, hi."

"Dad, oh. We weren't..." Alexis fumbles.

"I wasn't fishing..." Kate says at the same time as Alexis.

"Kate," Castle says, cutting her off, "I haven't asked because I didn't want to pressure you. But I've been ready for you to be here since the first night you stayed. Hell, I was ready two years ago when your apartment blew up. Stay? Live here? Rearrange the furniture and put up your artwork and be here always?"

Kate walks over to Castle, kisses him. "Easier to ask when you know the answer already?"

"I don't know the answer yet."

"Yes, you idiot. The answer is yes."

Castle takes her in his arms, holds her close. After a minute together, they motion Alexis over to join them, make it a group hug. Castle offers to open a bottle of champagne, but it's late, and the girls beg off. They talk for a few minutes more, Castle telling them about his dinner, the girls skimming lightly over their discussion. Eventually, Castle notices that his daughter has yawned a few times too many, calls an end to the evening. Happy to have her home, even for just a night, he walks her to her room while Kate cleans up.  
"You know, pumpkin, you keep doing a pretty amazing job of pushing Kate and I along."

"I'm sorry Dad, I don't mean to. I mean, I don't set out too. I just want you happy and her happy, and it seems to happen," Alexis says, but then gets an evil thought. "I'm done though, Dad. You're on your own for the proposal."

He just smiles. "Don't worry dear daughter, I am actually ahead of you for once on that one."

He kisses her on the crown of her head, turns to go back downstairs, chuckling at the stunned look on his daughter's face.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **This idea was proposed to me by reviewer JorgyHawk. Just a little interlude that takes place between Chapters 1 and 2 of this story. We'll return to our regularly scheduled programming shortly.

* * *

She's been here before.

Well, not here, obviously, since this particular bookstore is in a neighborhood way off from her main haunts, but she's been in this position before. A book signing. Richard Castle. Waiting.

The first time was early into her twenties, waiting for an hour and half to get forty-five seconds with the man and a generic signature inside her copy of 'In a Hail of Bullets.'

The second time was eight months ago, with a copy of a book he's written about her, about them, when they hadn't spoken in three months because she was broken and he was angry and she had no idea how he'd respond.

Okay, so eight months, and they are no farther forward. She's still broken, he's still angry.

But she'll be damned if she's going to wait in line just to repeat history.

She steps away from the crowd, walks to the front of the store, where they've set up a table. She can see him, looking away from her, back towards the crowd and the line, signing a book for a nice, professionally dressed woman in her mid-50's, obviously flirting, obviously making her day. She can see Paula too, behind him and closer to her, taking notes on an iPad and keeping an eye on the crowd.

Kate keeps moving forward, her back far straighter and more proud than she's feeling. She's rehearsing the words in her head, not sure how to open, what to say. The virtual Castle in her head has a hundred ways to rebut her, push her off before she's even started, and her head is starting to fill up, literally clog, with the dozens of scenarios, the hundreds of possible conversations that could spool out from the moment she speaks to him.

Even though she's got her cop bearing going, her cop walk engaged, a security guard steps forward, goes to stop her as she approaches the velvet rope lines that separate the writer from the room. She moves the edge of her jacket away from the line of her body, revealing her badge, makes sure the guard catches sight of it. She points at Castle.

"I'm going to talk to him now," she says in a way that causes the guard to raise his hands in supplication, back off. She's working hard to appear, externally, like a badass, even though she's breaking, broken, inside. Alexis' words are running around in her head...

"He knows you don't love him. Doesn't blame you for that... you have to protect him from his own hope."

She's not sure how, but she's going to _fix this_.

She steps over the rope line, tries to break stride as little as possible, and her presence is starting to get noticed. Castle and Paula both look her direction in response to the shift from the crowd. She looks only at Castle, sees the slide carrousel of emotions flick across his eyes - confusion, happiness, fear, anger before he settles on the stoic frustration that's clouded his features these last few weeks. He pushes away from the table, goes to stand up.

"Beckett, why are you..."

She doesn't let her inertia flag, even though she's on autopilot now, acting purely on instinct, on a fuel of guilt and want. Her hands are on his shoulders before she's even aware of what she's going, pushing him back into his chair. She keeps going, into him, her knees on either side of his thighs on the chair, so that she's kneeling on him, and her hands move from his shoulders to the back of his neck so that she's wrapped around him, tipping his head up to hers.

Her thumbs slide along his temples and his words die in a gasp, and then she's there, on his mouth, inside it, kissing him, but doing something more too, like she's trying to crawl inside him. The world is pulling away from her, away from them, only a distant light on a far horizon and then not even that, a nothing in comparison to this, to touching and tasting and escaping into something that is more. Just more. More than she can contain or describe.

There are pricks of light behind her eyes, phosphor burns at the periphery of her vision, like ball lightning in the middle of the night, and takes her a moment to place them.

Camera flashes. They are not alone. They are in a room of 300 people that have come to see him, and she's just... oh.

She pulls back, not able to let go of him or move, but at least able to break the kiss. She looks at him, sees the confusion, and yes, still anger, in his gaze. She ignores it, tries to concentrate on the haze of longing she sees.

"Folks, the author will be taking a ten minute break. Please hold your place in line," a woman says. The woman, obviously the store manager, comes over to where Castle is sitting, leans down to the two of them.

"Mr. Castle, Ms. ... there is an employee breakroom behind you. I suggest you use it. I'll make sure my employees stay out of there for a few minutes."

Kate blushes, nods to the woman. She stands up, reaches out for Castle's hand to help him up, but he pushes out of the chair on his own. He leads her to the break room, closes the door behind them, looks around to verify they are alone. She waits a second for his question, but he doesn't speak, just stares at her with his back against the door.

So she'll have to start then. Fine.

"You heard me, with Bobby the pickpocket."

She hadn't put the pieces together until just then, as she spoke. She hadn't guessed, hadn't even thought of how he knew, too busy reeling from his conclusion, but now it's all clear to her, what changed and when.

He doesn't say anything, doesn't confirm or deny her assertion. She can see he's struggling, forcibly holding himself back from speaking, yelling, whatever.

"You heard me, knew I've been lying to you all this time. You decided it was because I didn't feel the same way, that I was avoiding the situation so I didn't have to turn you down."

At this, he finally responds, though it's just a short, stuttering nod.

"I have been lying. But not because I didn't feel the same, but because I did."

"You're going to have to explain that one to me," he says. His voice is strained, gravelly, but at least he's talking, she thinks. She takes a step forward, but he flinches and she stops.

"I couldn't face it. I'd be there, lying in that hospital bed, or later at Dad's cabin..." She stops, takes a deep breath. This is no time for pride. "I'd daydream about you, about _us_. You'd be there with me, in my head, over me or touching me or just walking beside me, and your words, what you said, they'd come to me unbidden, and ... my god you have to know how wonderful, how full, how happy they'd make me feel... but then, I couldn't control it, I'd be back in the cemetery, lying there on the ground, feeling cold, feeling ... I can't even explain it ... like that moment when you trip on the stairs and you don't know if you are going to catch yourself, or if you are going to fall backwards, crash down the stairs, break your neck. Every time. Every time, I wanted to think about you, or just couldn't help myself from doing so, and you'd be there, you'd say you loved me, and then I'd die, over and over again. I couldn't separate the two."

His face has changed, completely, as she's spoken, and she realizes he's taken two steps towards her, stopped himself. He's still holding himself back, but now in a completely different way.

"When I saw you in the hospital... it ... your face was the last thing I saw before I died. I had to get away from you. I had to get to a point where I could see you without being back there, where I could hear what you wanted to tell me and not feel like I was going to die, all over."

"I became a trigger. How long, Kate?"

"A month, two. I've been seeing someone, a therapist. He helped me a lot, made me able to separate the two incidents, able to get me to concentrate on the good between us, so that when I thought about you, didn't lose my breath, didn't feel..."

"I'm sorry, Kate. If you'd told me..."

"Then what? Then you'd have felt guilty, or you would have tried to fix it. But you couldn't have and I couldn't even have explained it anyway. I did the wrong thing, I'm sorry, but it was the only thing I thought I could do, at the time."

"And now?"

"I don't see you and think of it. Not since last summer. When I got over it, I came, found you as soon as I could."

"And now? If ... you heard the words?"

She smiles. "I'd tell you I love you too."

He stops holding himself back, steps impossibly close to her. "Prove it. I love you, Kate."

"I love you, too," she says, surprising both of them by how easily the words come.

"I love you, Kate."

She laughs, rolls her eyes. "I'm not a parrot, Castle. It's not a parlor game."

He smiles too, his lopsided smile that tends to make her a little flushed. "I'm not going to be able to go back out there now, after this."

"They aren't going to be happy about that."

"Are you kidding? What you did? It's going to be in every gossip column by morning. You probably sold an extra 25,000 copies today. 50,000 if we leave now. Paula is going to send you a fruit basket."

"You know, there's a door behind me," she says, as coyly as she can.

He growls, pushes her towards the door and picks her up, all in one motion. His lips are on hers and she's only dimly aware of her back pushing the door open, spilling them out into the alley. They make out against the brick wall of the building for several minutes until she realizes that someone might see them. She takes his hand, pulls him down the alley towards the street at the far side of the bookstore entrance, away from the crowds. When they get to the street, she calms down, walks them south, wanting to be home, but not wanting a cab. Wanting this, just this, a few simple minutes to walk with him, holding hands.

"Find a cab?" He asks.

"It's not that late yet, let's walk, at least for a bit."

They walk down Central Park West for awhile, skirting the edge of the park, enjoying the lengthening shadows over the street.

"You know, Kate, not that I'm complaining, but why now?"

"You mean, why in the middle of a book signing on a Tuesday afternoon after eleven months of avoiding the question?"

"Well," he says laughing, "I wasn't going to be dumb enough to phrase it like that, but yeah."

"Alexis."

"Alexis?"

"She... it's dead at headquarters, so I went down to talk to Lanie, but your daughter was there. She, um, read me the riot act."

"Oh, yeah, I've been on the wrong end of one of those. You sorta forget that you're the adult and she's the kid."

"Yeah. She told me I had to stop stringing you along. That I had to let you go so you could move on."

"So is that what this is? Odd," he says, bumping her shoulder, "feels different than that."

She tucks into him, looks across the street at The Dakota. "Okay, so I only took half of her advice."

"Come home with me? Just to have dinner..."

"Just dinner?" she interrupts, "And here I had my heart set on dessert."

"Well, hold that thought, because I think the first thing I'm going to have to do when we get home is thank my daughter."

* * *

**A/N: **Bit of advice - don't post at midnight on Saturday if you want people to read your stuff. Oops.


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